Many Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children survivors cannot forgive abuse
Restorative justice process doesn't interest some Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children survivors
An advocate for victims of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children says many former residents of the school want nothing to do with the ongoing restorative justice inquiry.
"Some people just feel that no matter what you say, no matter what you do, you can never ever replace that pain. I don't forgive you. I hate you. That's just the way some people are," said Tony Smith, inquiry council co-chair.
At an update Wednesday on the progress of the inquiry, Smith talked about how he was removed from the home because he was "fair-skinned." He said he was subsequently removed from a white orphanage because he was black.
The home opened in Dartmouth in 1921. Residents of the orphanage suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse by staff over a 50-year period until the 1980s.
Class-action lawsuits were launched by the former residents against the home and the provincial government, which eventually ended in settlements totalling $34 million.
According to the update released Wednesday, the mandate of the inquiry is to document the experiences of former residents of the orphanage as part of Nova Scotia's "legacy of systemic and institutionalized anti-Black racism, both historic and current."
Much of the early part of the inquiry consists of group discussions with victims or relationship building. From there it moves on to learning and understanding and finally, planning and action.
"Through the sharing circles and the partners circles we'll be able to identify or fine tune a particular issue and then move forward with action," said Chief Judge Pamela Williams, who is the co-chair of the council.
But Smith said there are a number of victims who don't want to take part.
"There's a number that says, 'I don't want nothing to do with the home or the settlement,'" he said.
"What we try to do is give a vehicle for those who are at some kind of point that they want to make some kind of change. That's why we have this opportunity here."
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